Indra participates en the ‘SAHEL’ project to provide telemedicine services in Sub-Saharian Africa

Indra, one of the leading multinational consulting and technology firms in Europe and Latin America, has provided its experience and global leadership in the field of health and Digital Medical Records to the ‘SAHEL’ (“Satellite African eHealth validation”) project. The objective of this project is to support the implementation and subsequent expansion of financially viable telemedicine services in Africa through the integrated use of Information and Communication Technologies and satellite technology.

The ‘SAHEL’ initiative is managed by the European Space Agency (ESA) and co-funded by the European Commission for Sub-Saharan Africa. Its origin lies in the conclusions extracted from the Telemedicine Task Force (TTF) that was launched in 2006 and involved the participation of various European and African organisations. Its start-up marks a milestone in the medical care that has been provided to date in the African continent, and it is an example of how the collaboration of institutions, businesses and organisations can help bridge gaps and contribute to truly and effectively improving the quality of life for the people and the local economies of developing countries.

‘SAHEL’ has made it possible to define and implement a pilot that connects the remote regions of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa with hospitals and medical centres of excellence. It marks the first step towards configuring a comprehensive telehealth system (eHealth) that includes services in the area of telemedicine, epidemiological control and continued education for healthcare staff as the basic pillars on which to base future services.

A consortium of companies and entities, led by EADS CASA Espacio, has been responsible for carrying out this initiative in which Indra has participated by implementing its telemedicine platform (Telemed) and its healthcare information system (Health Network). EADS CASA Espacio has been responsible for coordinating the pilot. The consortium also included the participation of important businesses and universities such as SES ASTRA (Luxembourg) to define the service and provide fixed broadband access via satellite, the Université Numérique Francophone des Sciences de la Santé et du Sport (UNF3S) to provide the teletraining medical content in French, and the non-governmental organisation (NGO) African Medical Research Foundation (AMREF) to provide the eLearning contents in English. The experience and technologies used will be made available to AMREF, a centre of excellence based in Kenya with extensive international recognition in the area of developing health services in Africa, and to Le Kinkeliba, an NGO that has been active in the field of health in western Senegal for more than 15 years.

The work of these NGOs has been crucial for adapting and implementing SAHEL because they have collected the real needs of users and coordinated fieldwork efforts with key local staff so the pilot could be effective and useful for the population. By acting as a link between the population and the project's technical partners, the system has been able to effectively address the most urgent healthcare requirements.

Indra health solutions: Health Network and Telemed

Indra's collaboration in ‘SAHEL’ will make it possible to use telemedicine as a way of bringing the best medical care to patients and providing cutting edge training to professionals. To do so, the company has implemented its healthcare management system, a modular and adaptable management platform on which different services can be arranged.

The Indra system will enable telediagnosis as well as a portion of the possible healthcare services, offering medical care in real time in order to resolve clinical symptoms. This way, doctors and nurses can communicate at any time with specialists from centres of reference for assistance in diagnosing and treating patients.

The platform also offers a Digital Medical Record service that facilitates many tasks associated to the healthcare provided as well as patient tracking. Using this service, professionals are able to access the individual and family medical records of patients, manage medical appointments, prescriptions, first aid and vaccinations, as well as design healthcare programmes adapted to the priority needs of Sub-Saharan Africa (including maternal health and infant care). It also favours the generation of epidemiological reports on Notifiable Diseases for official use and the creation of statistics for internal use in order to help professionals with their work. This function for monitoring diseases is especially important since it makes it easier to track and control the most devastating diseases for the populations in these regions, such as endemic diseases (malaria), tuberculosis or AIDS.

Lastly, the platform includes an eLearning service (distance learning) that has been conceived to provide continued education services for healthcare professionals (doctors, nurses, midwives, etc.) in rural settings. The distance learning catalogue contains courses for the most requested specialities, including online seminars, tutoring and other topics. The contents are provided by the UMVF and AMREF.

Pilots in Senegal and Kenya

The ‘SAHEL’ pilot has been implemented at three primary and secondary care centres in Senegal and Kenya, connecting them with reference centres in both countries: National Kenyatta Hospital in Nairobi (Kenya) and the African Telemedicine Centre in Dakar (Senegal).

The launch of ‘SAHEL’ has enabled significant progress for the healthcare that had been provided in these Sub-Saharan Africa countries to date: patients in rural areas, most without significant financial resources, had no choice but to travel to major urban hospitals in order see specialists or for emergencies. Thanks to the ‘SAHEL’ platform, doctors at rural centres and remote areas are able to request direct assistance from specialists at reference centres. In addition, the eLearning service provides training for medical staff at small and remote centres, adding value to the healthcare offered in these regions.

In addition, having access to centralised Digital Medical Records makes it possible to continuously track patient health, including doctor visits, diagnosis, vaccination plans, and to focus on the health issues and programmes that are most necessary for the region, such as infant and maternal care.

The results of the ‘SAHEL’ project are enabling a qualitative step in the progressive adoption of telemedicine services in Sub-Saharan Africa. This is expected to translate into a new phase where Indra will play an important role, centred on analysing how to apply to the reality of this region the knowledge acquired and the conclusions obtained from the specific initiatives that have already been carried out.

Indra

With this project, Indra has strengthened the exportation of its global leadership and experience in the field of digital health. Recently, the technology company has supplied and implemented its Health Network system at La Florida Hospital, Chile, making it the first centre to fully implement digital operations within the framework of the health ministry's hospital concession programme. Indra has also implemented Health Network at the Makati Medical Centre (MMC), the largest hospital in the Philippines, and it has also been awarded a major project for the Kingdom of Bahrain's ministries of healthcare and defence for the development and global operation of all the network applications in the country's national health system, including both hospitals and health centres. In Africa, Indra's health solution has also been implemented at several hospitals in Morocco.

Indra is one of the world's largest consultancy and technology multinationals, a leader in Europe and Latin America and is expanding in other emerging economies. Innovation is the cornerstone of its business, which is highly focussed on the customer and on sustainability. The multinational is one of the leaders in its sector in Europe in terms of investment in R&D and innovation, having invested more than €550M in the last three years. With sales approaching €3,000 million, it employs 42,000 professional and has customers in 128 countries.

EADS CASA Espacio

EADS CASA Espacio, a subsidiary of Astrium, is the leader in the Spanish space industry. A European Centre of Excellence in Composite Materials, which since 1966 has developed, produced, integrated and rated space systems, instruments and subsystems for launchers, satellites and the International Space Station. The experience and qualifications of its staff of more than 400 space activity professionals have enabled EADS CASA Espacio to become Spain's leading provider of complete satellites and a key player in the development of new satellite communication systems applied to various sectors, such as telemedicine and the monitoring of natural disasters.

European Space Agency (ESA)

The European Space Agency is Europe's gateway to space. Its mission consists of configuring the development of Europe's space capacity and guaranteeing that investment in space activities continues to benefit European society and industry.